Night of the Heroes

by Adrian Cole

  The housemaid escorted her visitor into the room. He was a stranger to her, dressed in smart but inexpensive clothes, his face a little flushed, looking around him as though slightly intimidated by his surroundings.

  “Very sorry to intrude, ma’am,” he said, his hands twitching nervously. “I’ve come with an urgent message.”

  “Thank you. From whom?” she asked pleasantly.

  “Oh, yes.” He reached inside his jacket, rummaging around unsuccessfully for something, before trying his trouser pockets. He brought out a white envelope with her name hand-written on the front. There was a fleur-de-lis in the top right hand corner rather than a stamp. She would have known the handwriting anywhere.

  “Thank you,” she said again, taking a silver paperknife from the mantelpiece and slitting open the letter. It was from Armand.

  Ma cher Annabella,

  Already I have need of you again. I apologise for the suddenness of my request, but there is another injured man. One of the Bowman’s team. After the activities of the night, he is in need of discreet attention.

  Monsieur Ricketts, the bearer of this note, will bring you to him, if it is not too much trouble. He is a nervous fellow, but has my complete trust.

  Even so, make sure you are well guarded. Remember the earlier words of your devoted friend,

  Armand.

  “And your name is?” said Annabella sweetly to the young man.

  “Uh, Ricketts, ma’am. Dick Ricketts. Mr. de Gilbert’s man told me to be at your disposable. If you need me to take you to — the place in the note.”

  At my disposable, she mused, with another grin. Well, it’s Armand’s note, no denying that. “Very well, I’ll get my coat.”

  In the hall, one of the footmen brought the coat and her medical bag to her and she nodded at him in the silent communication that was an integral part of his trade. He would be organising cover for her within minutes.

  “Well, Mr. Ricketts, how are we to travel?”

  “By car, ma’am. It’s parked just down the street.”

  “I don’t know if you are aware of it, but I’m in the habit of taking two escorts with me when I go out on these kind of calls.”

  “Mr. de Gilbert’s man told me that,” nodded Ricketts.

  Outside, Annabella paused on top of the wide steps, long enough for her observers and protectors to take note, although she still felt slightly ridiculous. Poor Henry! With the death of the American, who was obviously important to Henry and his own skullduggery, he had become even more touchy than usual about her safety.

  Ricketts led her and her two escorts, tall, be-suited characters who each wore at least two sidearms under their jackets, along the broad pavement to where a black Daimler gleamed in the sunlight. The windows were smoked, but when Ricketts opened the back door, Annabella saw that there was only the driver within. Before she got on to the plush back seat, one of the guards briefly inspected the car inside and out, Ricketts looking on anxiously, a jackrabbit caught in a headlight. Inside the car, he looked even more uncomfortable next to Annabella, both of them sandwiched between the two silent guards. As the Daimler purred out from the kerb, two other cars pulled into the street some distance ahead, as did two others behind.

  Annabella knew better than to ask where they were going. The Black Bowman (she smiled at that: it was almost an adolescent reference and she had teased Armand about it more than once) shrouded all his affairs in secrecy, but doubtless he had his reasons and she was convinced that the Government was involved. All the more reason for the Boys’ Own names, she imagined.

  Although it had been impossible to see in through the smoked windows, she could see out. The car quickly passed through the more salubrious parts of the city and turned down a narrow avenue that led, she felt sure, to a dock area. She sensed the unease of the guard on her right, noting that his hand had slipped inside his jacket, no doubt to rest on the handle of his firearm. But if one of the Bowman’s team were hurt, this would be the sort of area where it would have happened. The killing last night had been near the docks.

  The Daimler eased through more narrow streets, the escorting vehicles still not far away. It came out on to a wide wharf, though there were no ships moored to it. The sky had become gray, wisps of fog forming on the near horizon and the sea itself looked even grayer, the tide low, shifting sluggishly, its surface dappled with broken crates, weed-smeared branches and other flotsam.

  “This place is a little exposed, ma’am,” whispered the guard in Annabella’s ear. “We have no cover if we get out of the car.”

  She craned her neck to look out of the narrow back window. Two snub-nosed vehicles, part of her escort, coasted up to within a dozen yards, protecting her rear. Up ahead, from another alley that debouched on to the wharf, the other two escorting vehicles quietly drove into position. Annabella exchanged glances with the guard, who seemed mollified by the appearance of his colleagues.

  “Well, Mr. Ricketts, where to now?” she said.

  He pointed through the windscreen to a curving jetty that swept out into the bay, its far end humping up in a confusion of buildings. Houses, warehouses and small factories clumped together like clams on a rock, a bizarre offshoot of the port. The quay was far too narrow for the cars to drive along.

  “We have to go on foot from here. Our man’s hidden in one of the inns.”

  The guard looked sharply at him, shaking his head at Annabella. “I don’t think this is a good idea, ma’am.”

  “Oh, nonsense. There are enough of you. Come on, let’s get this done with.”

  Reluctantly and with infinite care, the guard opened his door, the gun now in his hand. “Please wait a moment.” He went outside, closing the door. The cars at the rear disgorged eight more guards between them, who waved silently.

  Annabella and Ricketts got out. They could see a party of three men coming along the quayside. Up ahead, another eight men had got out of the two cars. Annabella’s other guard went slowly to meet them, and she felt Ricketts nudge up behind her, evidently as nervous as a cat on hot bricks.

  She was about to say something to the nearest guard, when he gasped, hand snatching at his neck. He folded to his knees, head bent, gun clattering on the cobbles of the wharf. Mesmerised, Annabella stared at the blood running through his fingers. Then he had fallen on his face. She was about to help him, when she felt something hard dig into her ribs.

  “Keep very still, doctor,” growled Ricketts in a very different tone, one hand gripping her arm painfully, the other holding the gun that was pressed to her. The remaining guard was out of sight. “No good looking for your heavies here. Okay, just walk slowly towards those men from the quay.”

  She made to protest, at last getting her wits back, but he twisted her arm cruelly. “They want you alive, but I’ll put a bullet through your leg if you don’t do as you’re told. Both of them if I have to. Now, move.”

  Stupefied, she did as bidden, slowly walking along the wharf to the jetty. Why didn’t the other guards do something? Good God, there were over a dozen of them! But she realised why almost at once. They were not her men. Somewhere on the journey here, they had been, what? Killed? Diverted? Please God, let it be that, she thought.

  As she got closer to the first group, she saw their guns, the silencers. They had simply shot her two guards. Behind her, the others were following, silent as ghosts.

  “Where are you taking me?” she snapped at Ricketts.

  He eased the gun from her ribs, stepping back but pointing the weapon at her midriff. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Someone was getting out of one of the cars. He would have been tall, but for some reason he was hunched over. For a moment the whole scene was frozen in a strange tableau. All attention seemed to focus on this man. His hands came up to cover his face and to her horror, Annabella saw that they were mutated in a ghastly fashion. There were no fingers, but bunches of what seemed to be small tentacles. Aghast, she watched as they dropped away from his face to
reveal his features. The sight brought a gasp, almost a cry, from her. It was hardly human, the eyes feral, the nose a snout, the lips drawn back over yellowed, canine teeth, row upon row. But worse than that, there was fresh blood on his chin and on his shirtfront. A lot of it.

  As she watched, unable to tear her eyes from the scene, the face seemed to be dissolving, the features smoothing out. The very size of the man altered. He was no longer hunched and became less tall. In a few staggering moments he was a medium built man, his distinct features those of a thirty-year-old Oriental, well-groomed, very smart, his eyes intelligent now, all trace of the beast gone. But one part of him had not changed. Those dreadful hands. Annabella shuddered as he slipped them into his pockets, drawing out a handkerchief. Casually he wiped away the blood from his face and shirt, tossing the handkerchief aside.

  “Let me introduce you to Mr. Ho,” said Ricketts, with a cold smile. “A man of many talents. Not the least of which is forgery.”

  The Oriental bowed politely, but it only served to make Annabella shudder the more. Those hands were mercifully out of sight again.

  “A pleasure to meet you,” said Ho. His eyes regarded her, but they were uniquely chilling, alive but not alive, as though not human but machine. “Rest assured, you will not be harmed if you cooperate.” His voice, like his eyes, lacked any warmth.

  “What do you want?”

  “Your friends have something I desire. Provided they give it to me, you will be returned to them.”

  “If not,” said Ricketts beside her, “then we’ll give you to Mr. Ho. He’s not the sort of man you want to upset. He’s a proper gentleman, is Mr. Ho, but when he loses his rag, he’s a different proposition altogether.”

  * * * *

  In the centre of the roughly chalked out pentacle, Reverence slumped forward on his knees. At once Jameson went to him, easing him up and out of the hated design and into one of the large armchairs beyond it. Miss Timkins had already brought a bowl of warm water and at once began mopping at the detective’s brow. His shirt was saturated in perspiration.

  “Reverence!” said Jameson, shaking his friend. “For God’s sake, man! I told you this was dangerous!”

  “Is he all right?” said Riderman, bending down, wanting to help.

  “Semi-conscious.”

  “Smelling salts?” said Riderman.

  “No! Too dangerous. God knows where his mind goes when he does this.”

  Reverence had taken the envelope and its contents and focussed on them as he had knelt in the centre of the pentacle. After a few moments of intense concentration, he had begun to recite a monologue in a dull, expressionless way, but through it had revealed to the listening group the events that had befallen Annabella, as though Reverence had been beside her throughout the abduction.

  “I think he just needs rest,” said Jameson. “And a fresh shirt. He’s far too cold like this.”

  Riderman rushed off at once.

  “Who is this Mr. Ho?” said Miss Timkins to Mears. “Do you know?”

  Mears was thinking back to the graphic novel he had read, where Bannerman, Cyberwolf, had been kidnapped by Fung’s agents. The man who had led them had been called Ho. He explained to Miss Timkins. Jameson did not seem interested, his whole attention focussed on his friend.

  “Is this Ho like Cyberwolf? This transformation —” said the girl.

  “Fung’s trying to create his own variation,” nodded Mears.

  Riderman returned, clutching a fresh shirt and clean clothes. He gave them to Jameson, who busied himself at once.

  “Is he going to be all right?” said Riderman again.

  “I don’t know. I’ve warned him over and over again about the dangers of doing this. He’s in a trance, though it’s very deep, more like a coma. His heartbeat has dropped, as if he were frozen. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

  PART FOUR

  BEYOND SPACE AND TIME

  “I envy you,” said the king, leaning back on the sumptuous divan, sipping carelessly at his wine. “Your freedom. You have no idea how lonely it is being a monarch. I am surrounded by admirers, concubines, men of intellect, but they are all sycophants. Is there any man more isolated than I?”

  The barbarian shrugged, his tongue loosened a little by the wine he had also drunk. “Your pardon, Lion of the North, but you are no worse off than I am.”

  “You think so? How is that?”

  “I am a mercenary. I sell my sword and my skills to the highest bidder. When I’m bought, I am loyal, though few would trust me. I travel from war to war, city to city. I make few friends. Most of them die. I call nowhere home. I have no family. You, at least, have that. And though Death may walk close to you, you have your protectors. I have none, save my own wits.”

  The king stifled a belch. “Then I should be thankful, Konnar. Would you trade places with me?”

  Konnar laughed. “No, lord, I would not.” But if I had your throne, I’d last a lot longer than you would in my shoes.

  —From Warrior Breed

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  In Pseudospace

  The fall into brilliant white light, the tumbling, end-over-end plummet, disoriented him: so much so that he seemed to be floating, easing down into nothingness progressively more slowly. When he finally stopped moving, his senses had become so dizzied and confused that he was no longer sure about anything. The sheet of plate glass that had given way when the lightning had struck had dissolved, although his hands and face were pressed up against something equally as cool and flat.

  No physical harm done, his mind told him with a judder of relief. He should have smacked down onto the hard concrete of a car park or sidewalk outside the building, but it hadn’t happened.

  The brilliant light remained and he had to squint to avoid the worst of its glare. He pushed himself slowly to his knees. Faint humming sounds came from around him, the soft purr of machines. Beneath him the ground vibrated slightly. I’m inside something. And it’s big.

  Shapes began to focus, blurred and shifting. But there was no breeze, nothing to contradict his assumption. He stood up, still a little groggy. Amazingly there was nothing wrong with him, other than the dizziness. He looked down at himself. And realized. He was in pseudospace. This was not his physical being.

  But how? It was not the way things usually happened. There had been a whole lot of computer hardware nearby, but he had fallen outside the building. No chance to hook into a system and make the leap. Had something within him, some deeply buried power, been triggered by his fear? Vaulted him across the void into this place? Unless those bastards did something.

  He felt a sudden lurch of horror. Then maybe my body did hit the concrete. If it had… But he tore his mind away from what that must have meant.

  Instead he looked around him. The light was fading a little, enough to see more. He would have to be on his guard. Anything could happen here, especially if he had been put here by that Chinese guy, Ho. So what did he do now, remain as he was, or shift into his alter ego? Maybe that was what they wanted. He resisted the urge, as he had been doing for some time. Too dangerous. I don’t have control any more. The whole Cyberwolf thing has gone wrong. Like being trapped in the mind of a psycho and losing all influence. Can’t risk it.

  The surroundings coalesced into sharp focus. He was in a dense wood, the trees compressed, the undergrowth bushy. A low canopy of foliage screened off the sun’s glare. They must have chosen this scenario for a reason. Bland, pastoral stuff, nice and relaxing, he assumed. Standard network defense. He looked down again and saw that he was now on a path, faint but clear enough. They would be expecting any intruders into their system to follow it. Standard defensive set up. Lull the unwary and then download them into cyber-hell.

  He took a few cautious steps, all the time his mind racing. Either they want to study me, in which case they’ll want to see the Cyberwolf persona, or they’re still trying to trap me. If they brought me here, it’s the first. If I came by some o
ther freak means, like subconscious self-defense, it’s the second. There’s a chance they don’t know I’m here. Or if they know they have an intruder, they may not know it’s me. At least he was certain that he hadn’t created his surroundings.

  For a while he kept on moving down the path, senses attuned to the sounds around him, which were increasingly developing into the natural sounds of a wood, enhancing the illusion of pseudospace. Whatever system he was inside, it was classy: these were grade A images with sensory enhancement that tricked all the senses equally. Most intruders would have been pretty well fooled.

  There was a small clearing ahead, and as he stood at its edge, a figure appeared beyond it, a man dressed in casual clothes who studied him with a puzzled expression, partly hunched down in a defensive position that suggested he would bolt at the first sign of hostility. “What you doin’, fellar?” he called.

  Bannerman eased forward, ears listening for the slightest sound of movement on either side of the clearing. Perfect place for a trap. And something was out there, faint movement to the left and right, among the packed trees.

  “Not a lot,” he said with a grin. “Easy place to get lost in.” He quickened his pace, but not obviously.

  The man came forward, looking less apprehensive. “Sure is. Folks get stuck all the time. But you ain’t that far from the road. You got a car?”

  “Sure.”

  “Want me to show you the way to the road?”

  Bannerman knew that once the man got close enough, he would try to get a hold on him. Then the rush from the woods would come. Oh, yeah, this was a trap. So they hadn’t brought him here, or at least, weren’t quite in control of the situation.

  “Thanks.” He moved forward more quickly, a few paces from the man, who took a step back. Bannerman smiled, knowing that the next few moves would be critical. He remained relaxed, as if he were at ease, unsuspecting. The guy was bound to make the first move.

  He was right. He saw the body tense, as if to spring or lurch forward. Bannerman instantly lifted his right arm, hand extended. “Name’s Salt,” he began. The move had slightly thrown the man, but he must have decided to capitalise on it, grabbing for Bannerman’s hand. But his own hand slid over the top of Bannerman’s as the latter gripped his wrist, yanked him forward and hit him in the chest with his shoulder. If this had been a physical contest, the blow would have knocked the man clean off his feet. But here there was a fizz of something vaguely electronic and the image of the man wavered, warping itself into something bizarre, the shape and lines folding on themselves. With a final brief burst of light, the man was gone.